


In Which Newton Is A Badass And Everyone Is Surprised

by bellepeppertronix



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, M/M, the power of FRIENDSHIP!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellepeppertronix/pseuds/bellepeppertronix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann runs into an old classmate. </p><p>Newt comes to his rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Newton Is A Badass And Everyone Is Surprised

"But seriously! THREE of them? What were you going to do?" Raleigh is laughing, shaking his head.  
"Yes! Three! They were gigantic. Stacker kept telling me not to go near them, but I just thought they looked like wet dogs with weird legs. They were so cute! And I had never seen a sea-lion up close! So, over three days, I saved up my breakfast rolls..."  
"...Oh, no," Tendo says. He's drinking some local-brewed beer, something that he probably forked over an obscene amount of money for--but that doesn't matter. They're heroes. They might be JUST this side of broke, but they're all going to be in history books, and they still have each other. Newt bites his lip and corrects himself--MOST of each other.  
He is rolling his pint glass between his palms, smiling idly around at them. He's got nothing but warm dregs and foam left. Empty pint glasses and brown and green glass bottles scatter the table between them, and everyone is laughing and bright-eyed.  
Hermann is over at the bar ordering another round for all of them, and he actually SMILES at the bartender, this girl with her hair dyed bright, candy-apple red and tattoos of butterflies and ferns scrolling up and down her arms--and Newt is looking over at her, too, thinking absently that Hermann has pretty good taste, when he sees it start to happen.  
This...there's no way to describe the guy beyond a sleaze--sort of sidles up to the bar, and starts hitting on the redheaded bartender--who apparently has not finished taking Hermann's order. The guy's wearing an outfit that Hannibal Chau would have found too tacky to be seen in public in--all white everything, like a Cuban drug dealer circa 1979, and brilliant-yellow kidskin loafers with toes so long they remind him of sled runners. He is wearing a white silk shirt and a blindingly glossy white silk tie, with a diamond-headed tie pin glittering out on it. There are more rings on his hands than Newt can count--big, tacky, and gold--and a Rolex on one of his over-tanned wrists. His platinum-blond hair is scraped back into a greasy little tail like a pimp from a bad 1990s movie, and his skin is the over-tanned to the taffy color of expensive leather. Impossible, he thinks, how some people could even PRETEND to maintain a "lifestyle" when the entire world had just about been stomped flat by gigantic monsters. Newt rolls his eyes, thinking, Douches will be douches.  
The other man looks over at Hermann archly, one eyebrow climbing his leather-tanned forehead, and something in the snide face makes Newt's skin prickle with dread.  
And suddenly Newt RECOGNIZES him.  
Shutter-slide of memories floods through his mind: another boy, bigger, stronger, and handsome, holding him (Hermann) by the hair on the back of his head and scrubbing his face viciously against a chalkboard in an empty classroom, the memory of pain sharp and branching through his nose and face--abrupt slide into another memory, in a cafeteria, Newt guesses, and sitting down to eat lunch. Or, he (Hermann) was trying to; the other students kept flicking trash into his food. Pencil erasers, pebbles, chewed gum--and all he can do is sit, his face burning in shame, unable to say or do anything. But the absolute end is when this boy--and this time he (Hermann) looks up and into his face--casually leans over and pours his drink all over everything on Hermann's tray. This boy is blond and tall and strong, with blue eyes like chips of glass. While he ruins what's left of his (Hermann's) lunch, he has this hard, ugly, triumphant little smile on his face.  
Everyone at the table stares and laughs, their faces twisting like melting wax.  
There are others, each one spinning off another and another, until the mental tide is like a weight pressing all the air from his chest, and all he can do is stare, his mouth open. He wants to scream at Hermann to leave the bar, to come back to the safe harbor of their table.  
What he actually does is mutter, "For fucking REAL? We save the world, and HE has to show up HERE?"  
Beside him, Mako turns from the story she was telling--Tendo and Raleigh look over as well--and she asks him, with raised eyebrows, "What was that, Newt?"  
"Sorry, Mako--I have to--this guy--Hermann--" he stammers.  
But he knows he doesn't have time to explain. He just stands up, pint glass in one hand, his eyes set and determined.

Hermann is trying to pretend he doesn't remember who Leopold is.  
But he is in the middle of giving his name to the bartender when Leopold slides in, slick as grease, and without even excusing himself begins to place an order OVER his.  
"Hello, there--Hu Jiao? Yes, beautiful name," he says, reading her nametag that's pinned to her black vest, and his eyes linger over her breasts for a full beat longer than is tasteful. "I will have a martini, dirty, and why don't you keep the rest of this for yourself," he says, smirking. He waggles a folded bill at her between two fingers, just in front of her, nasty smirk stretching his lips.  
She looks at him, bemused, and then says, "...Well, I WOULD take your order, sir, if I was finished with my prior customer's order. But, since I'm not, could you please..."  
And then the other man is looking over at Hermann, and Hermann's stomach drops--HARD--when he puts two and two together and realizes who Hermann is.  
"Hermann? Hermann Gottlieb? My GOD, it IS you." Leopold says, and his smirk is like a knife.  
"I beg your pardon," Hermann says, and is doing his best to keep a straight face--a talent well-honed from hours of putting up with Newton's shenanigans.  
It does not work.  
"It IS you!" the laugh, worn down to smooth cruel suaveness. "And, my god, you haven't changed a day. Still dressing like a mummified professor, I see. What antique shop did you buy that outfit at?"  
Hermann starts to say something, but the words won't come.  
Someone else farther down calls the bartender, who apologizes to Hermann and rushes off. And suddenly he is alone, and there are no boundaries of social propriety to keep him safe from Leopold.  
Whose grin is nasty as rusted knives.  
"Never thought I'd see YOU again. Would have thought you'd get eaten, you know. Never WERE the fastest, were you?" he says, smirking. And glances down at Hermann's leg, his cane, and back up at his face, a laugh bubbling up out of his throat like tar.  
Hermann feels like he's being flayed, but cannot move. If he looks back at the table, he KNOWS, in some way, that Leopold will follow him and ruin everything. He wants, at least, to look DIGNIFIED in front of his friends, if he knows he can never be as formidable as Mako, as stylish as Tendo, as handsome as Raleigh, as weirdly cool as Newton. He doesn't want them to see him like this.  
"Aww, what's the matter, Ikkle 'Ermann, still scared?"  
And Hermann feels wretched and childish all over again when the other man makes a fist and draws it back, and still--as if they were both still twelve--he flinches.  
Leopold laughs, and punches him--with a bare pretense of joviality--in the shoulder.  
"Just like old times."  
He is snapping his fingers at the nearest waitress, and when she comes over he crowds her against the countertop, plucking a drink off the tray she is carrying and taking a gulp.  
"Sir--"  
"This tastes like paint stripper. You were going to give this to someone?" he asks, his face cruel and gleeful. The waitress is still trying to smile and slide away, even as he snatches another one of the drinks. The cup overbalances and pinkish liquor sloshes over the tray, spattering her shirt.  
She steps back, making a dismayed noise, and Hermann gets his voice back for a split second.  
"What do you think you're DOING?" he snaps, and then, to the waitress, "I'm very sorry, miss--"  
Leopold glances over his shoulder at Hermann, and elbows him so hard in the chest that he stumbles backwards and has to grab the bartop to avoid falling over.  
He doesn't get a chance to even think of a comeback.  
Newton is there, very suddenly, helping him straighten up, nodding at him once.  
And then he pushes his glasses up and turns on Leopold.

"Lemme guess," Newton says, comfortably sliding between Hermann and the sleaze like he belongs there, "You must be Leopold. Wow, you SO didn't age well! How's that, er..." Newt gestures loosely at the man's tacky suit, the garish tie. "No, no, that's fine, you don't need to tell me! But I gotta tell you, you probably shouldn't be harassing a world-famous scientist. Especially not in front of his equally-world-famous and also slightly drunk boyfriend. Just a suggestion."  
The man looks from Newt to Hermann and the filthiest grin slithers across his face.  
"Oh, HO, then! So Ikkle 'Ermann really WAS a whoopsie!"  
Newt glances once at the dregs slopping around in the bottom of his pint glass.  
"I think we got off on the wrong foot, don't you? Here, let me make it up to you. Wanna try the house special?" Newt says, and tosses the glass's contents on the man's tacky leather wing-tips.  
The man starts to complain when Newt slams the glass down on the countertop, shearing away the rim and leaving him with its thick glass base and jagged edges radiating upwards.  
"Newton!" Hermann says, his hand on Newt's arm, but Newt doesn't flinch or change expressions.  
"'S'okay, I've been hangin' out with some new friends. Learned a few things," he says, without looking at Hermann.  
"So, I think you're going to apologize to the good, and very handsome Dr. Gottlieb, or I'm gonna use this to remove your ears. Then your nose. Then your eyelids." Newt says this, casually, waggling the shattered glass in one hand.  
"And before you start to say I can't do that, lemme tellya, buddy," he grins, "I've seen and done some REALLY crazy shit. You ever see what happens if you slice too far through a kaiju membrane containing poison sacs? Heh, no, I didn't think so. Anyway, if you DO--slice too far, that is--you'll never see anything again, since that shit inside the sacs is a type of metabolized hydrofluoric acid. So, me, I'm used to having to make pretty precise cuts on some really volatile specimens. I really, really hope you don't think I couldn't take a man's eyelids off without scraping his sclera."  
"You can't talk to me like this! Do you know who I AM?"  
"A blowhard in an ugly suit that you OBVIOUSLY paid way too much for?" Newt offers, and the man swings at him.  
And suddenly Newt has him by the tie and slings him sideways, into the bar, and suddenly his forearm is across the man's neck, forcing him down across the bartop, and the broken glass is an inch above his wide, startled eyes.  
"You ever stare down a kaiju's throat, Leo, ol'-buddy-ol'-pal? It's a helluva lot scarier than some rich douche who hasn't advanced past the mental age of twelve. So all the posturing is actually kinda sad, I think. Listen...I like to talk, but you're interrupting a really nice night I was having, so I'll spell out clearly for ya, okay? Pay attention."  
He cinches the tie tighter. Leopold's face is turning a really unattractive beet-red.  
Newt leans even closer, forcing his head to one side and jerking his tie like it's a leash, until Leopold is looking over at Hermann, who is staring at them in shock.  
"Look. LOOK. That's Dr. Hermann Gottlieb of the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. He's a hero. And YOU were harrassing him in public!" Newt says.  
Leopold cannot talk. Newt's arm--and his deathgrip on his tie--make absolutely certain of that.  
The bar is completely silent around him, but everyone heard the words 'Pan-Pacific Defense Corps', and they are building in a rapid murmur that runs through the room like an electric current.  
Mako, Raleigh, and Tendo push through the crowds and stand in a half-circle behind him, staring at Newt.  
"Newt," Raleigh says, "Uh, buddy. What are you doing?"  
"Nothing, nothing," Newt says, casually, "Just something that's a long time overdue."  
He turns his attention back to Leopold and snarls, "APOLOGIZE, you shitfuck, or I'll cut out your fucking eye and make it into a cane ornament for him!"  
He loosens his grip. Leopold chokes out something that passes for an apology.  
Newt grins, satisfied, but doesn't let him up.  
"Also apologize for the chalkboard. And don't say anything stupid like 'What are you talking about,' because if you play dumb now, you'll be playing one-eyed pirate forever afterwards."  
Hermann must have finally caught on, because a guilty smileis creeping across his face, erasing the expression of shock.  
Newt winks at him broadly.  
"Apoligize. So he can HEAR you!"  
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Hermann!"  
"Doctor Gottlieb!" Newt hisses, under his breath, into Leopold's ear. "He's DOCTOR Gottlieb to you. Got it?"  
"I'M SORRY, DOCTOR GOTTLIEB!"  
"Now say you're a huge idiot with no sense of style, who dresses like a coke-snorting pimp from the 1970s!" Newt demands, gleeful and vicious.  
"W-What?" Leopold sputters.  
"DO IT!"  
"I--I'M AN IDIOT--I'M A COKE-SNORTING PIMP FROM THE 1970s! PLEASE! PLEASE LET ME GO!" he screams, and Newt sort of steps out of the way and throws the man down and sideways like a bag of garbage.  
No one in the bar says anything.  
Newt straightens his perpetually-crooked tie, tugs on his jacket lapels, and then looks around at everyone who is crowded around them.  
"Sorry you all had to see that." he says.  
The staff break into applause, including the waitress with the stained shirt.  
They leave Leopold in a gasping heap on the floor and go back to their table.  
No one else in the bar offers to help him up. The bartender drops a 'wet floor' sign near him and goes back to work.  
While Newt is fishing through his wallet for money to pay for the glass, he feels Hermann's hand on his arm.  
"That was...very unneccessary, Newton," he says.  
Newt's eyes are bright on his. "But did you like it?"  
"Immensely," Hermann replies, on the tails of his words.  
"Newt!" Mako's eyes are huge, her mouth slightly open, "Where did you learn to DO that?"  
"Um." Newt says, and tosses the broken glass into a trash can. "A friend?"

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for an LJ kinkmeme prompt!  
> the prompt is here: http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/350.html?thread=2398#t2398


End file.
